NOTICE, October 2016:We have new decipherments relating to Stonehenge and Avebury at our Ancient World Blog. Take a look now.It will be a while until we can move them properly to this website. We are talking about a lot of material.

A
Preliminary
Notice about LAND SURVEY and the Author of Megaliths.Net,
who is also a
Stanford Law School Graduate in the USA

The author of
this
website during college days worked on a land survey team for the Nebraska State Surveyor's
Office in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. That "Nebraska connection" is
deepened in the next paragraph, showing how land survey is connected to
a study of the megaliths.
SYSTEMATIC
PRESENTATION OF MEGALITHIC and PETROGLYPHIC SITES AS ASTRONOMY

Megaliths.net is a systematic graphic-supported analysis of
megaliths and megalithic sites around the world which shows that
ancient megalithic sites are land survey sites located by prehistoric
astronomy. As observed by Alice
Cunningham Fletcher (Alice C. Fletcher) in her 1902 publication in
the American
Anthropologist, there is ample evidence that some ancient
cultures, e.g. the Pawnee
in Nebraska, geographically
located their villages according to patterns
seen in stars of the heavens. FLETCHER, A. C. (1902),
STAR
CULT AMONG THE PAWNEE —A PRELIMINARY REPORT. American Anthropologist,
4: 730–736. doi: 10.1525/aa.1902.4.4.02a00050.

The photograph at the left is a photograph that includes Alice
Cunningham
Fletcher with Nez Perce Chief Joseph and is described at the Wikipedia as follows:

"Alice Cunningham
Fletcher and Chief Joseph at the Nez Percé Lapwai Reservation in Idaho, where Fletcher arrived in 1889
to implement the Dawes Act. The man on one
knee is James Stuart, Alice Fletcher's interpreter. According to Jane
Gay in "With the Nez Perces" (University of Nebraska Press, 1981),
Stuart customarily kneeled in this way when he felt anxious. Photograph
by Jane Gay. (Courtesy Smithsonian Institution, National
Anthropological Archives [MS4558]. Images from the National
Anthropological Archives may not be reproduced without permission.)"

The Smithsonian image is, however, in the public domain.

The
Hermetic
PAWNEE Star Lodge System

The
most ancient
plan of Stonehenge looks like this:

The image above is my scan of an
original survey map of
Stonehenge as found glued to the inside margin of page 55 of William Long's
book, Stonehenge and its Barrows, published in Devizes in
1876 from the Wiltshire
Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, vol. xvi, Wiltshire
Archaeological and Natural History Society. That book is still the
best book ever published on Stonehenge, except for Gerald
S. Hawkins, Stonehenge Decoded.
The
Pawnee Star System was applied hermetically on Earth i.e. "As Above, so
Below" and Fletcher's drawings show without any doubt that this same
system was quite obviously used in the oldest constructions at famous
locations such as Avebury, Knowth and Stonehenge, whose clear
astronomical nature is still disputed by scholars lacking knowledge.
Mainstream scholars alleging that those constructions are not clearly
astronomical have not done their homework, as these Pawnee drawings --
undeniably astronomical -- prove.

I have below - speculatively - interpreted the Pawnee Star Lodge
stellar system, which is based on a "four post hole" system, just as
at Stonehenge. This interpretation is not as important
as the recognition that the Pawnee system and the Stonehenge and other
similar constructions represent the same ancient "astronomical
technology", and they do so, evidence-based, on the undisputed Pawnee
example.

We have studied whether the astronomy of the Pawnee was more widespread
in ancient
eras,
not only in the United States but around the world.... It was.

We have applied the "Pawnee" hermetic astronomical principle, "as
above, so below" to megalithic sites around the world, for example,
to the Malta
Temples,
and have achieved remarkable results.

We suggest that many megaliths and megalithic
sites served as boundary stones and landmarks
sighted (and sited) by astronomy.

Included here are also petroglyphs
(ancient rock drawing sites) which we think are often astronomically
oriented (e.g. Kilmartin, Scotland or Tanum,
Sweden -- see below -- or Peterborough,
Canada).

The same is true of the locations and subjects of prehistoric art in
cave paintings. As an example, the Lascaux Cave in France is located at
45 degrees North and its paintings are clearly subject to astronomical
interpretation.

Archaeologists seem to have little interest in or knowledge about
ancient land survey systems or ancient astronomy, so that archaeology
per se is not the right academic discipline to be presumed in charge of
analyzing the function of ancient megalithic sites, petroglyphs, or
cave paintings. Systematic analysis of the ancient sites of mankind's
heritage demands
an understanding of the subject under examination. An academic trained
and
skilled in digging up pots has no rightful claim to expertise in
understanding astronomical
survey sites of antiquity.

An
Illustrated
Photograph of Stonehenge
by Andis Kaulins (photo 2005 by Andis Kaulins)

Our
2005 photograph of Stonehenge above (here reduced in
size - see larger
photograph here) was taken from the Heel Stone along the main axis
of Stonehenge, known as the Avenue, looking from the northeast to
the southwest on Salisbury Plain. We combine that photo with our
illustration of the exact corresponding viewing position at Stonehenge
(looking from bottom to top). We developed the above visually
explanatory image because books and other online websites on Stonehenge
do not provide satisfactory explanation of what one is looking at.
Numerous megalithic sites are long on hype and short on science, and
this includes also websites of mainstream archaeologists. Hype does not
displace probative evidence.

STONEHENGE IS ONE EXAMPLE OF
OUR ANALYSIS

Megalithic sites such as Stonehenge, which
according to our research is undeniably an astronomical
lunisolar calculator, also are presented in our pages, but we go beyond
previous research.

THE STONEHENGE EARTHWORKS (CURSUS, BARROWS)

Barrows,
viz.
tumuli or tumps (in
America, "mounds") that are nearest to Stonehenge served as
astronomical markers, principally marking stars in a system of
astronomical measure and attendant land survey that extended far beyond
Stonehenge.

The system of barrows seems to have its origin at least as far back as
3000 B.C. According to our analysis, the long barrow at
Winterbourne Stoke Crossroads marks the crossing point of the ecliptic,
ecliptic meridian and celestial meridian at the point of the Vernal
Equinox ca. 3117 B.C. That conclusion supports e.g. Professor Julian Thomas of Manchester who assigns
an ancient date beyond 3000 B.C. to some of these earthworks.

Take a look at Google
Earth and the barrows (also called tumuli
viz. tumps, i.e. "earth mounds") that surround Stonehenge.

The image below shows tumuli to the left of Stonehenge that can be
viewed at Google Earth, as these tumps are found just above and to the
right of the roundabout (intersection) on the road to Winterbourne
Stoke.

A clipped Google Earth map
of the area around
Stonehenge is reproduced at the top of the image above. Compare that
map with the star image directly below it based on Starry Night Pro (http://astronomy.starrynight.com/)
star positions, and compare both maps with the bottom photo found at
Vladislav Yastrebov of the Pleiades and nearby stars at http://yastrebov.fr/photo_astro.html
(c) Vladislav Yastrebov (posted here as "fair use").

If the tumps, tumuli and barrows of Ancient Britain marked stars in the
heavens, as we argue they did, then these tumuli clearly mark the
Pleiades. We made this discovery independently and posted it already in
February of the year 2002 to the Files of our the LexiLine group at Yahoo! Groups and refer to those
Files in a March, 2002 LexiLine posting. The correspondence of these
tumps to the brightest stars of the Pleiades cluster is so clear that
other keen observers of the stars also claim to have seen that
correspondence. Wayne Herschel in his book, The Hidden Records, which
was published in January 2003, also claims to have seen the clear
correspondence independently sometime in 2002. We say, bravo! Who
actually made this discovery first is not that important. It would be
good if we could get the hardheads in archaeological circles to take
off their blinders and see what is absolutely evident, and, if these
tumps represent stars, then probably many such tumps in the United
Kingdom represent stars as well, with all of the consequences of that
recognition for historical research. We do not share any mystical or
extraterrestrial interpretations, however, and claim that these
megalithic sites are all man-made, for the purpose of land survey by
astronomy in the hermetic tradition -- "as above, so below."
But that is not all, as the other groups of tumuli directly surrounding
Stonehenge then represent, as they must, the stars of Aries and the
stars of Cetus, i.e. nearby stars to the Pleiades, as we show in the
following postings.

CETUS AT STONEHENGE

Cetus at Stonehenge: If Tumps, Tumuli and Barrows in
Ancient Britain Represented Stars, the Tumuli Below Stonehenge are the
Stars of Cetus

Take a look at Google Earth and the tumps (also called tumuli
viz. barrows) that surround Stonehenge, including the cursus and "cursus
barrows" (labeled as "curcus barrows" by some Panoramia gallery
users at Google Earth).

The bottom half of the image below shows tumuli to the South of
Stonehenge that can be viewed at Google Earth.

A clipped Google Earth map of the area below Stonehenge is reproduced
at the bottom of the image above. Compare that map with the star image
directly above it by Robert Mura, CC-BY-SA 3.0, from Software Perseus,
via Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cet.png.

Compare now the following star map which has the same relative size as
the star map above, and that is why we use it, but is here imposed upon
it, showing names of stars and the modern view of Cetus. We see that
the ancients used many of the same stars, but at that time had a
different resulting conception of what Cetus represented.

In any case, as previously stated, if the tumps, tumuli and barrows of
Ancient Britain marked stars in the heavens, then these tumuli clearly
mark the stars of Cetus and I have added red lines to show the stars
corresponding to the appropriate tumuli.

There is a line of tumuli below these and those are also stars of Cetus
and further down the line stars of Eridanus and Fornax, as identified
on our main decipherment image some postings previous to this one.
There are several obvious "lines" of stars extending down from Cetus
and Eridanus but we superimposed images of the stars from Starry Night
Pro on variously sized maps of Google Earth and they showed that the
line we identify is the line intended by the ancients.
THE KNOWLTON RINGS

The Knowlton Rings are
barrows viz. tumuli located
in East Dorset, England, United Kingdom, southwest of Stonehenge at a
location which would correspond astronomically to the stars of Taurus,
given our previous postings, and thus it is not surprising that the
Knowlton Rings in fact mark the Vernal Equinox ca. 3000 B.C. via the
stars of Taurus and at least one of the Hyades. For orientation, the
stars of the Pleiades are also marked to the northeast.

Google Earth is of little use here, but we found an image online by Steve Burrow of Bournemouth which shows a full
archaeological survey map of the Knowlton Rings. Since that image is
copyrighted, we redrew the entire map to a larger size (it may not be
exactly to scale as a result) and added our astronomical explanations.

Two images were required to be able to show the full correspondence of
the barrows and tumuli on Earth with the stars in the heavens.

The Pleiades are so clear as be without any possible astronomical
dispute. Indeed, even the famed seven-star symbol of the Pleiades is
apparently used. However, the Pleiades doe not represent this
megalithic site, but have only been added here for completion of the
location by the ancients.

Knowlton itself is defined by the stars of Taurus near Aldebaran and
the Hyades. In Taurus, stars important to marking the Vernal Equinox
point on the ecliptic are given priority so that the major star
Aldebaran is only marked to the right of the larger rings without any
greater significance, as it is not on the ecliptic. The same holds true
for the Hyades. However, numerous stars can be identified with little
difficulty, as shown in the following images.

Image
1 of 2 of
the Decipherment of the Knowlton Rings

Image
2 of
2
of the Decipherment of the Knowlton Rings

Obviously,
the interpretation of one megalithic
site alone does not prove the hypothesis that ancient barrows and
tumuli, viz. tumps, marked stars in the sky as part of archaic
astronomical practice and also as hermetic land survey -- as above, so
below -- but when one can start to incorporate several megalithic
sites, as we have done in past postings, into a cohesive interlocked
system, then the likelihood that the hypothesis is correct has been
magnified algebraically.

LINGUISTIC
EVIDENCE PROVIDES US WITH ADDITIONAL CLUES

We try to examine ALL available evidence in our research. Even
linguistic evidence is useful. For example, the name Stonehenge
itself, as noted by William H. Long in his 19th century book, Stonehenge
and its Barrows - which is still the best book available on the
history of Stonehenge (now available at Amazon) - may be a term of
Germanic origin as haengende Steine or Steinhang
meaning "suspended stones". Locally, Stonehenge was allegedly called nawt
by the Welsh, meaning "sanctuary", but we think that nawt
originally meant node (Welsh noad) viz. "knot"- of the
Sun and the Moon, so that Stonehenge was by name "an eclipse
calculator". The Irish megalithic site of Knowth may be similarly
named as the "knot" viz. "ankh"
of heaven at heaven's center.

STONEHENGE SHOWS THAT LOCATIONS OF MEGALITHIC SITES MAY
NOT BE CHANCE

The location of megalithic sites is of great importance, which few
researchers have understood. Gerald S. Hawkins in Stonehenge
Decoded (p. 154) is a happy exception as he writes as follows about
the unique location of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain:

"Newham
and
Charriere of France ... commented on the very
noteworthy circumstance that the latitude of Stonehenge is practically
optimum for sun-moon rectangular alignment.... [I]n the northern
hemisphere there is only one latitude for which, at their extreme
declinations, the sun and the moon azimuths are separated by 900.
Stonehenge is within a few miles of that latitude."

This confirms that Stonehenge may have been named anciently as the node
of solar and lunar rectangular alignments, especially for eclipse
prediction.

This practice reflects something which the ancients called hermetics,
retained in modern times in the phrase: "as above, so below". Our
research indicates that the ancients meant that phrase literally, as
they used the heaven of stars above as the model for their earthly map
on the ground below. We shall suggest that the same basic system as
used by the Pawnee was not only used at Stonehenge and throughout
Ancient England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, but was also used globally
by ancient man in prehistoric days, for example, at megalithic sites
such as the Malta Temples, each of which, as we have discovered,
represents a star group.

The use of the hermetic principle is documented in Pharaonic Egypt as
well. John
Brock observes that land survey in ancient Egypt dates back to the
earliest days of that ancient civilization and that ancient Egyptian
hieroglyphs "even
refer to
setting boundary stelae 'like the sky' ".
Obviously, this is evidence that the sky was used as a model for land
survey. The heaven of stars served as the map model for land survey on
earth. That is the hermetic principle.

Megaliths of Kilmartin,
Scotland Are a Sky Map of the Heavens

The Kilmartin, Scotland megalithic monuments are a sky map of the
heavens at least 4500 years old.

The
monuments of
Kilmartin cover a 6-mile radius of
terrain and employ the hermetic principle, "as above, so below" in
creating a mirror-image of the stars on the surface of the Earth.
Kilmartin was a mammoth ancient "star" project.

"There are more
than 800 ancient
monuments within a six-mile radius of the village of Kilmartin, Argyll,
many of them are are prehistoric. This extraordinary concentration and
diversity of monuments distinguishes the Kilmartin Glen as an area of
outstanding archaeological importance. It is one of Scotland’s richest
prehistoric landscapes."

The
beauty of my
decipherment is that once one knows
the solution to the monument puzzle, that solution is open to anyone
who has or obtains a minimal understanding of astronomy and the stars
of the heavens.

The key to the decipherment was the initial identification of the
stars of Cygnus, Draco and Leo. The rest followed. If the decipherment
were correct, the other stars had to fit. They do, and ANY reader can
check the solution. That solution is not perfect, and surely much will
be done down the road to improve it, but its general correctness is
without doubt

Of course, the ancients may not have made the same groupings of stars
into constellations or asterisms as we do today, and it is unlikely
they used exactly all the same stars, but the bright stars in the sky
lend themselves to stellar organization and sky-mapping such as we find
in our modern Zodiac.

The three images presented below are:

Kilmartin Monuments Deciphered as Astronomy
by Andis Kaulins, 2000 to 2012, as based on an Ordnance Survey map that
maps monument positions at Kilmartin. Kilmartin (page x), An Inventory
of the Monuments Extracted from Argyll, Volume 6, Royal Commission on
the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), 1999.

Sky map excerpts clipped from Starry Night Pro,
the best software program out there for this kind of work, http://www.starrynight.com/,
showing how the stars actually looked ca. 2500 B.C.

The
author has also
deciphered a similar map of the
heavens on Earth in the case of the prehistoric rock drawings viz.
petroglyphs of Tanum, Sweden.

The Rock Drawings (Petroglyphs) of Tanum, Sweden are a
Sky Map of the Heavens

TANUM
PETROGLYPHS, SWEDEN (our decipherment)

TANUM
ROCK
DRAWING LOCATIONS, SWEDEN

The
rock
drawing
locations at Tanum, Sweden represent a sky map of the stars

Decipherment
or
Explanation?

We
call
our
presentation "the decipherment of the megaliths". The term
"explanation" might be a better, if also less effective word. You can
access our pages through the geographic links in the left column
or at the bottom of this text or at the top of this page.
If you prefer the printed word, you also have the option to buy our
book on the megaliths at Stars
Stones
and Scholars: The Decipherment of the Megaliths (see Science
Book Review for
review).

The text material below is intended as an introduction to materials on
this website. We think that your understanding of our pages will be
increased if you continue reading this page, but that is up to you. You
can always come back to this page later through the "home" link above.

Megaliths
and
Megalithic Sites are a Source of Controversy

The
world's
megalithic sites are a source of controversial mystery to science. No
mainstream discipline has ever engaged in a systematic study of the
world's megalithic sites. Quite the contrary, pioneer scholars such as
the late Gerald S. Hawkins, who wrote the groundbreaking Stonehenge
Decoded,
have often been ignored by the establishment. Hawkins himself related
the tale of a British government official who simply rejected his
findings without reading them by stating that "the
ancient Britons couldn't have been as clever as all that".
In fact, the megalith builders are still more or less an "unknown"
quantity, an uncertainty which leads most archaeologists and most
mainstream scholars to avoid megalithic study altogether.

But how can this worldwide heritage be ignored and ancient history be
accurately written without accounting for megaliths and megalithic
sites? Who erected them, and why? Mainstream science does not know. We
claim to have a part of the answer.

Megaliths
and
Megalithic Sites as Boundaries and Landmarks
There is in fact compelling evidence that many megaliths served as
ancient landmarks and boundary stones which were sighted (and sited) by
astronomy. Indeed, the much maligned historical so-called Hermetic
tradition clearly points to the origins of megalithic sites in land
survey. For example, Gnosis.org writes
about the Hermetic tradition as follows:

"The
name Hermes appears to have originated in the word for "stone heap."
Probably since prehistoric times there existed in Crete and in other
Greek regions a custom of erecting a herma or hermaion
consisting of an upright stone surrounded at its base by a heap of
smaller stones. Such monuments were used to serve as boundaries or as
landmarks for wayfarers."This
hermetic
tradition contradicts the prevailing but unsupportable mainstream view
that the original purpose of megalithic sites was to serve as
tombs, for which there is little probative evidence. Rather, we know
that the ancients often transported huge stones many miles to erect
them at a particular location far removed from their origin. Obviously,
these sites were not tombs, as it would have been far simpler to
transport the deceased to the area of rock quarries, rather than vice
versa. Obviously, the sites chosen for megaliths had a special
significance.

If the original Neolithic megaliths and megalithic sites were
boundaries and landmarks, how were the locations selected and surveyed?

One of the cardinal precepts of the Hermetic tradition is "As above, so
below". In days before writing and the invention of printed maps, one
could not simply go down to the local store and buy travel maps, and
yet, people had to be able to get around on land and to navigate by
sea. How did they do it? How did they know where they were?

We claim, and all available evidence points in this direction, that the
ancients took a "fixed known map" - this was the map of the heaven of
stars - and projected that map onto the Earth - as a model for land
survey. Anyone having knowledge of the heavenly stars could thus find
his way around on Earth by means of the megaliths, which served both as
boundaries and landmarks, sighted (and sited) by astronomy.

The
Hermetic
System of the Pawnee in Nebraska (Alice C. Fletcher)
As already noted above, the 1902 American
Anthropologist published an article by Alice C. Fletcher titled Star
Cult Among
the Pawnee-A Preliminary Report, American Anthropologist,
October-December, 1902 Vol.4(4):730-736 and describing the hermetic
astronomical system of the Pawnee in Nebraska, whose villages and
their respective geographical locations were represented by stars in
the heavens. As part of the Anthropology Journal Archive Project,
Ralph Bachli of Boston University (Parker Shipton) wrote about
that article as follows (we have added emphasis in bold face type):

"Alice
Fletcher
documents the astrological symbols of an
American Indian culture.... She notes the historical diffusion
of beliefs and rituals throughout American trade and pilgrimage
routes. Fletcher focuses on the Pawnee perception of the stars
and its effects on village planning and indigenous
mythology.

Up until the late nineteenth century the Pawnee inhabited the Platte
River in what is now the Midwestern state of Nebraska.... Fletcher
investigates the Skidi Pawnee clan who portray astrological themes
in village construction. Skidi comprise five functioning villages,
each containing ritual icons for the worship of certain constellations.
Each village took on characteristics of certain star systems, and
ceremonies were initiated to celebrate the astronomical rhythm of
favorite constellations. The geographic location of five Skidi
villages in relation to one another corresponded respectively to
the constellations to which they were symbolically attached....
Fletcher explains how the earth lodge abodes that the Pawnee
build are based on constellation patterns.... The Pawnee
transform observation of stellar patterns into village planning, hut
construction, and religion. These tribes had an intensive ritual
life that took place at shrines dedicated to the night sky over the
flatlands."

The
Megaliths
are a Hermetic System of Land Survey by the Stars
That in a nutshell, corresponds pretty well to the megalithic system we
have discovered. As we show e.g. in our
book
on the megaliths, each temple of Malta has a form which corresponds to
a different stellar constellation, and all of the temples of Malta fit
into a cohesive astronomical geodetic system. This, we allege, was an
ancient survey system globally applied.

For example, Gaelic tradition states that heavenly locations had
earthly counterparts, although this knowledge is now submerged in
Gaelic myth and is no longer directly accessible. The only way left for
us to reconstruct such ancient hermetic systems is to examine the
megalithic sites themselves and to research if these sites are systematically
located by the stars.

Megaliths.net thus presents text materials, photographs and drawings
relating to megaliths and megalithic sites - broadly defined to include
what are mainly Neolithic (Stone Age) standing stones, menhirs,
dolmens, cairns, quoits, tumuli, barrows, earthworks, dykes, henges,
circles, etc. Prehistoric cave paintings and rock drawings (rock art)
are also included in the analysis as precursors of megalithic art.
According to our research, the original forms of this type of art are
almost ALL astronomical in nature. The countries and regions of the
world that we examine are:

Megaliths ("giant standing stones", menhirs) and related constructions
such as cairns and dolmens (chambers of stone), tumuli and barrows
(ancient earthworks) and henges and circles were built by ancient man
for purposes of Astronomy and Geodetics.

Stated simply, stars were used to measure the Earth and vice versa.
This human achievement dates to the Neolithic Period (Stone Age), long
before such technology was thought possible by modern scholars. Indeed,
the observational astronomical tradition upon which the megaliths are
based is likely to be many thousands of years older than the megaliths
themselves.

As discovered by Andis Kaulins, Neolithic megalithic sites are
astronomy in a cohesive broadly based geodetic survey system.
Megalithic sites marked geographic land borders as triangulated by
astronomy, e.g. in Scotland, England
and
Wales, and Ireland,
much as the kudurri (border stones) of Mesopotamia. In modern
times, triangulation cornerstones have been put underground. In ancient
days, these stones were erected on the surface - and there most of them
have remained to this day. We can relate to this quite well by
experience, having worked as a student out in the field for a summer
for the Nebraska State
Surveyor's Office.MEGALITHIC
SITES
IN SCOTLAND

All
Neolithic
sites
in Scotland listed in the Ordnance Survey map of Ancient Britain (ISBN
0-319-29028-X) form a planisphere (sky map) of the northern and
southern heavens with a center at BALNUARAN of CLAVA, where BAL surely
means POLE, while NUARAN surely was an ancient name for the "River of
Light" (Heaven) as in Hebrew NEHAR DI NUR and Arabic NAHR.
See Richard Hinckley Allen, Star
Names, Dover (ISBN 0-486-21079-0). See my review of
that book. The decipherment began at Clava.

MEGALITHIC
SITES
IN ANCIENT BRITAIN : ENGLAND and WALES

All
Neolithic
sites
in England marked on the Ordnance Survey map of Ancient Britain,
including megaliths, quoits, tumuli and barrows form a map projection
of the stars of the northern and southern heavens, with the center of
the system at the Herefordshire Beacon and Midsummer Hill. Sites later
than the Neolithic period show that the ancients adjusted for
precession. The site called The Hurlers in Cornwall is a location at
which precession was calculated in Ancient Britain.

MEGALITHIC
SITES
IN ANCIENT IRELAND

Megaliths
and
megalithic sites in Ireland were selected and organized by region. The
counties of modern Ireland and Northern Ireland - to the degree they
approximate ancient regional boundaries - correspond to the stellar
constellations of the heavens.

MEGALITHIC
STANDING STONES ARE CARVED WITH FIGURES

Standing
stones,
menhirs, tumuli, barrows, cairns, quoits, dolmens, and selected
swallets and caves mark the stars of the heavens in Ancient Britain.
Many megaliths are carved with reliefs of interlocking figures (smaller
figures drawn within larger figures) which identify the stars to which
stones are oriented (this Neolithic artistic style compares to modern
works of M.C. Escher). Although our decipherment formally "began" at
Balnuaran of Clava in Scotland through the cupmarked stones at that
site, the megaliths at Wayland's Smithy e.g. were among the first
stones solved, based on the carved (sculpted) shape of the stones
themselves as well as through carvings on the stones and holes in the
stones marking stars. This paved the way for the rest of the megaliths
and for carvings found on ceremonial objects placed in swallets or hewn
on the walls of caves.

Tumuli and barrows are arranged in groups to mark certain star
clusters, e.g. the Knowlton Rings show Taurus and the Hyades.
Winterbourne Stoke shows the stars of the Pleiades. In some cases, the
apparently man-worked shape of cave rooms also identifies the stellar
constellations or geodetic locations. Various earthworks even plan and
record the astronomical and geodetic work, e.g. west of Torquay
(Torbay) and east of Lewes, England.

MEGALITHS
HAVE
CUPMARKS OR INDENTATIONS REPRESENTING STARS

Many
standing
stones have cupmarks or less formal indentations or holes on them
marking the stars or stellar constellations which they represent.
Additional markings on some stones identify parameters such as
ecliptic, celestial equator, circle of precession, center of heaven
(north ecliptic pole, south ecliptic pole), north pole star, south pole
star, cord of the fish, Milky Way and solstice and equinox points.

Weathering has of course made it harder to identify holes and figures -
but erosive processes also work on the contours of reliefs, holes and
cupmarks, so that these in many cases do not disappear entirely, since
they weather too and in some cases maintain their general near-original
shape. Using modern graphics software and the numerous tools available
for microscopic analysis of photographs, most of these sculpted
figures, indentations and markings on megaliths, cairns, stones and
dolmens can be reconstructed, e.g. by redrawing only the heaviest
visible lines or marks on the stones, or adjusting the brightness,
color and contrast of pictures. This detective work allows the stars
intended by the ancients to be identified in many cases.

MEGALITHS
AND
SITES ARE INTENTIONALLY SHAPED

Many
cairns or
quoits are in the shape of the star groups they represent. The shape of
many stones shows the appropriate part of the heavens explicitly.
Ancient earthworks also served astronomical purposes. Tumuli and
barrows mark specific stars or nebulae. A cursus at a site may, e.g.,
mark the Milky Way. Earthwork mounds may form the shape of a celestial
object, e.g. the Large Magellanic Cloud. The ancients - as shown on
Megaliths.net - knew the southern skies and left us evidence carved in
stone that they traveled as far as e.g. Africa, where we still find
megaliths in the Central African Republic, megaliths now easily
explained by geodetic survey and astronomy. That some ancient seafarers
knew the southern heavens is recorded in an ancient legend from Sri
Lanka, as found In Richard Hinckley Allen's book, Star
Names. Quoting from my Ancient
World Blog:

"Richard
Hinckley
Allen in his book, Star Names, Dover Publications, N.Y. 1997, reports
of ancient legends that the southern stars were initially created by
ancient seafarers to approximate the shape of Northern constellations
in similar positions. Allen writes (p. 436) as follows:

"Before the observations of the navigators of the 15th and 16th
centuries the singular belief prevailed that the southern heavens
contained a constellation near the pole similar to our Bear or Wain;
indeed it is said to have been represented on an early map or globe.
Manilus wrote:

'The lower Pole resemblance bears
To this Above, and shines with equal stars;
With Bears averse, round which the Draco twines;'

and Al Biruni repeated the Sanskrit legend that at one time in the
history of the Creation an attempt was made by Visvamitra to form a
southern heavenly home for the body of the dead king, the pious
Somadatta; and this work was not abandoned till a southern pole and
another Bear had been located in positions corresponding to the
northern, this pole passing through the island Lunka, or Vadavamukha
(Ceylon). The Anglo-Saxon Manual made distinct mention of this
duplicate constellation 'which we can never see.'...

And, quoting from Francisco Lopes of 1552: [our
comment: the spelling
is original!]'Abowt
the
poynt of
the Southe or pole Antartike, they sawe a lyttle whyte cloude and foure
stars lyke unto a crosse with three other joynynge thereunto, which
resemble oure Septentrion, and are judged to bee the signes or tokens
of the south exeltree of heaven.'

What is referred to here is not known, for although the figure
represented is that of the Southern Cross this constellation always is
upright when on the meridian, and, as the observation was made in
latitude 14° or 15°, its base star was plainly visible."

MEGALITHIC
SITES
MARK REGIONAL BORDERS

Megalithic
boundaries mark both small and large geographic areas. For example, Counties
in
Scotland still retain elements of the approximate size, shape, and
location of their comparable stellar constellations, located on earth
by megaliths. Perthshire in Scotland e.g. retains the name PERSeus in
PERTH. Megalithic sites in Perthshire such as Fowlis Wester represent
stars in Perseus. The relative size and shape of Perthshire corresponds
to the comparable constellation. Other counties are similar, though of
course changed somewhat over the millennia. The graphic below shows the
author at Fowlis Wester in the year 2001. The lines and dots have been
added to the photo (not to the megalith) by the author to show how the
stars of Perseus are represented by cupmarks on the stone, which shows
the side profile, back and shoulder of a woman who has turned her head
toward the viewer. The triangle of three large points to the left below
Perseus of course marks the stars of Taurus. The shoulder marks
the stars of the Pleiades for the reason that e.g. Plecs
means "shoulder" in Indo-European language, e.g. Latvian. This analysis
is supported for Fowlis Wester by Manx Gaelic Yn Whing as the
name for Perseus, where whing in Manx Gaelic means "span, arm".MEGALITHIC SITES
MARK NATIONAL BORDERS

Megalithic
sites
also involve geodetic survey by astronomy of regions on a larger scale,
showing e.g. that the ancient border between Scotland and England was
at Eridanus (Hadrian), represented by the River Tyne (Eri-Danus, with
Danus = Tyne, the watershed between Scotland and England) and ending at
New Castle ("new earthwork"). The ancients made separate measurements
for England (Wales included), Scotland and Ireland, each with its own
center of heaven for survey. The Channel Islands are also represented.

On the European continent, each region had their own geodetic survey.
In Germany
astronomical works of the Magdalenians (later called Franks or
Franken), were passed down as the legendary Ring of the Nibelungen,
living on the Neckar (Nahr). Tumuli (Hügelgräber), megaliths throughout
Germany, and the Felsenmeer between Frankfurt and Heidelberg
are clearly ancient astronomical geodetic markers. The Externsteine
were a center of astronomical activity. The Gollenstein (Gollen Stone)
at Blieskastel in Germany near Saarbrücken is the largest megalith in
Middle Europe (7.6 meters high of which 6.6 meters are above the
ground). As we have discovered, this megalith represents Hydra, the
"longest" stellar constellation. Megaliths extend outward from the
Gollen Stone and these megaliths surely marked the ancient border to
France.

In France, the cave
paintings, and the stones at Carnac and elsewhere are ALL astronomical
geodetic monuments. Mediterranean islands also have megaliths, such as
the stone Sa Perda Pinta from Boeli [pole] near Mamoiada which
we find marked a center of heaven for Sardinia in ancient days
(so our discovery).

MEGALITHIC SITES
MARK THE START OF THE CALENDAR

Geographic
locations of megaliths were intentionally oriented to the stars and to
objects of the heavens in a given era. For Neolithic sites, the
cardinal date seems to be either the Summer or Winter Solstice in 3117
BC (-3116 by astronomy) (as calculated by Starry Night Pro, ISBN
1-894395-01-8). Our initial view was that the Winter Solstice in 3117
BC was marked by a solar eclipse with Mars and Saturn at Spica in
Virgo, and the rest of the visible planets at the Winter Solstice
point. This unique phenomenon would have been well suited to start the
first long-term human calendar - retained in e.g. Hindu and Maya
calendration. However, due to the problems involved in calculating
Delta T (the change in the rate of the spin of the earth over the
millennia) as well as similar problems in determining the lunar
acceleration parameter, solar eclipse data in ancient eras is
subject to great dispute, and we are in the process of preparing a
special page on ancient solar
eclipses.

SAVING
AND
MAINTAINING THE MEGALITHIC SITES

Regrettably,
many
megalithic sites have been destroyed by people who know no better and
such ancient sites can no longer be reconstructed. We advocate that
there is a pressing need to photograph (from all sides) and catalogue
ALL megalithic stones and sites worldwide.

We hope also that our decipherment of the megaliths raises their value
in the eyes of humanity and that they will all then be properly
respected and maintained as the masterpieces of art and technology
which they once were and still are.

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